Tea Party movement

The Tea Party movement is an American antigovernment, grass-roots political movement. It began in 2009 in protest of the bank bailout and economic stimulus package. Its supporters vowed to purge the Republican Party of officials they consider not sufficiently conservative and to block the Democratic agenda on the economy, the environment and health care. Tea Party supporters tend to unite around fiscal conservatism and a belief that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional powers.

The Tea Party became a pivotal player in the Republicans’ successful bid to take control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. In those elections, four in 10 voters expressed support for the movement in exit polls. Those figures, and victories at the polls, underscored the extent to which Republicans and Democrats alike may have underestimated the power of the party, a loosely affiliated coalition of libertarians and disaffected Republicans.

In the 2012 elections, not only did President Obama, the focus of Tea Party ire, win re-election, but almost all the Senate candidates closest to the movement lost.[1]

Views

Lew Rockwell pointed out that the Tea Party movement is ideologically inconsistent. Lacking a coherent view of liberty, they have supported restrictions on immigration and on individual freedom in the social and cultural spheres.[2]